But good luck with that, because Marla’s not only co-author of the 2007 bestseller Body Clutter: Love Your Body, Love Yourself, and author of 2002’s Sink Reflections, she holds the record for world’s largest Yahoo user group!

He, as you no doubt know, is founder and CEO of BlogTalkRadio. Since its 2006 launch, BTR has emerged, he says, “as the dominant player in the latest media trend: live, interactive broadcasts that are immed- iately available on-demand.”

To wit, Alan’s a rapidly-emerging, global medium now sports a monthly audience of more than 3.5 million listeners.

So it’s no wonder that Marla and Alan make a great team on their weekly co-hosted show, Now Is the Time.

Nor is it any wonder that Dan and Chip Heath make perfect guests on that show.

After all, Chip’s a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Dan’s a consultant at Duke Corporate Education.

And together they are authors of the critically-acclaimed book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which has enjoyed stints on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best- seller lists.

Not only that, but they pen a Fast Company column as well. And guess who’s cited in the most recent edition of that column?

You got it: our own Marla Cilley.

To tune in to tonight’s meeting of the minds with Alan, Marla, Dan and Chip – at 8 p.m. ET – click here.

Yesterday, amidst developing news of Sirius XM’s struggle to fend off bankruptcy, Google announced plans to shut down its broadcast-radio ad-sales business.

The search powerhouse had entered that space three years ago, with the $100+ million acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting, whose technology put radio stations together with advertisers, while automating much of the sales process.

Many an industry observer felt Google’s move was overdue.

“I’m surprised it took them this long,” Ross Sandler, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, told Forbes.com. “They sunk a lot of money into this, and there was potential that never happened.”

“While we’ve devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven’t had the impact we hoped for,” said the company’s vice president of product development, Susan Wojcicki.

And though Google is exiting radio, it’s not saying goodbye to audio.

Part II of the company’s announcement yesterday concerned a space I am intimately familiar with – and bullish on.

“We will use our technology to develop Internet-based solutions that will deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio,” said Ms. Wojcicki. “We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space.”

That’s music to my ears; a success story like Google, the dominant player on the Web, acknowledging the potential of online radio to become profitable via an ad-supported model.

That’s also why I’m not shy about saying that BlogTalkRadio is interested in being part of Google’s exploratory efforts.

After all, we have emerged as the dominant player in the talk side of the streaming-audio equation.

Last month, according to Compete.com, we surpassed one million unique users.

But that critical mass is on-site users alone. Off-site, via services like iTunes and thousands of individual blogs and websites, the network has at least twice as many listeners.

BlogTalkRadio also amassed 270,000 unique keywords in January, creating a fast-growing amount of metadata that helps our shows become keyword searches in Google and other search engines.

Meanwhile, since launching in the fall of 2006, we have broadcast and archived more than 200,000 episodes, growing to more than 20,000 live broadcasts per month.

Because you – BlogTalkRadio hosts, listeners and staffers alike – made this momentous occasion possible.

According to Compete.com, a leading Internet-analytics service, BlogTalkRadio last month hit the one-million-unique-users mark for the first time ever. (Actually, we hit 1,006,996 – not that anyone’s counting.)That represents a year-over-year rise of 418 percent.

Even more amazing is the fact that users remain engaged on the network for an average of 12 minutes each.

And for the icing on the cookies (sorry, bad Internet pun) cake, BlogTalkRadio now ranks 1,861th among all U.S.-based websites.

“We’re thrilled to have come so far so fast,” says BlogTalkRadio Founder and CEO Alan Levy.

“I’d like to thank our entire community for making this phenomenal growth possible.”

Founded by Bobby and U2 frontman Bono in 2006, the marketing campaign raises money for the Global Fund, which in turn works to eliminate AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in African nations, while also stabilizing local economies.

Its corporate partners to date include American Express, Starbucks, Facebook, Apple and Armani.

And here’s just a sampling of its celebrity pitchpeople: Gisele Bundchen, Penelope Cruz, Chris Rock and Christy Turlington.

Bono on a RED-bag spree with Oprah.

Bobby – whose mom is Eunice Kennedy and (not to name-drop or anything) whose brother-in-law is Arnold Schwarzenegger – will also discuss his other career highlights.

For instance, did you know he was once part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles?

His show may be called Entourage, but last night on BlogTalkRadio, it was more like All in the Family!

Not long after Doug Ellin sat down with The Alan Levy Show host Alan Levy to chat about Season Six of the hit HBO series – which kicks off this summer – a surprise caller from Long Island threw the executive producer for a loop.

Doug: One take doesn’t cut it!

Turns out that Doug’s dad, Marvin Ellin, had a bone to pick with his son.

“I was wondering if Doug could an- swer how much influence he thinks his father had in his success?” Marvin teased.

That was when Marvin – who put in an Alfred Hitchcock-like appear- ance on last season’s Entourage finale, where the cast returned to the Big Apple – needled Doug about winding up with scant screen time.

“What a disappointment! I’ll get him for that,” said Marvin. “I had my one big starring role: Walking up a flight of stairs – and in one-eighth of a second I was gone!”

“It wasn’t cut. That was pretty much it. That was how it was shot,” explained Doug.

“Why did I have to do it four times?” asked Marvin.

Because if you stink – if we used the take you were in, you wouldn’t be in it at all,” laughed Doug.

“Then you would’ve really been cut.”

Doug also revealed to Alan how Encourage came to land Olympic hero Michael Phelps and Oscar winner Martin Scorsese for the same episode – as well as which pro athletes he’s hoping to wrangle in for Season Six (hint: one’s a recently-wed Super Bowl champ).

The answer we were looking for is: Every single one of them graced BlogTalkRadio this year.

And thanks to our fabulous array of hosts, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In all, 50 illustrious guests will be spot- lighted tonight on our Best of 2008! show.

Hosted by everyone’s favorite pod jockey, Shaun Daily, and every- one’s favorite social-media CEO, Alan Levy, the two-hour special will be coming to you live. And you know what that means!

It means you’re welcome to call in and join the year-end celebration.

(You’re also welcome to swig a split of Cristal. Better yet, have two splits – and fire up a Montecristo. Because if you made it through this year, what with the implosion of planet Earth’s economy and all, that’s the least you can do for yourself.)

Now the good news: Next Monday, Dec. 22, at 8 p.m. ET, we’ll be bringing you a super-sized edition of the ever-popular program.

(Cue “Whopeeee!” effect.)
The two-hour Best of 2008!, hosted by everyone’s favorite pod jockey, Shaun Daily, and every- one’s favorite social-media CEO, Alan Levy, will feature the best moments from BlogTalkRadio’s best guests of the year.

And which hosts, precisely, you’re no doubt wondering, will be featured? All we can say is, No peeking ‘til Christmas week!

Joining Shaun and Alan for this fabulous year-end wrap-up will be special guests from the BTR family – and of course you: Listener call-ins during the live special will be encouraged.